Grow up

Chapter 4

"Can we talk?"
Jeongin looked up from where he was eating his breakfast, seeing Hyunjin standing awkwardly, playing with his rings, a sign that he was nervous.
"Sure, what's up?"
"I'm sorry."
"For?"
"For being a shitty boyfriend."
Jeongin was taken aback, "You're not-"
"Let me finish, please. I've been ignoring you because of all this stress, and I shouldn't be taking it out on you, the other night I didn't even know you were regressed, I mean, we've been together for long enough now that I should've seen the signs."
Jeongin sighed and stood up from the table, walking over to Hyunjin and taking his hands in his own, "Don't blame yourself, okay? I can't expect you to always be there to look after me. I know you've been stressed out recently and i'm not exactly helping."
"Don't say that, you know how much I love looking after you, baby."
"I know but... I can't help but feel like a burden sometimes."
As the words left his mouth, Jeongin felt Hyunjin's hands cradle his face as he placed their foreheads together. "You will never be a burden, you hear me? I love you so much and I will do anything and everything I can to make sure you know that."
"Are you sure? I'm not just burdening you with all of this?"
"I'm positive. I love you."
Jeongin giggled, "I love you too, sap."
Hyunjin kissed his forehead, "I've gotta go now baby, but I'll see you later okay?"
"Okay." Jeongin whispered, a wide grin on his face as he watched his boyfriend walk to the door, turning back to blow a kiss before stepping out of the dorm.
~~~~~
"Hyunjin! How many times do we have to go over this? Your movements need to be more sharp, you look sloppy next to the others."
"Yes sir." Hyunjin gritted his teeth, this new choreographer was really pissing him off. Minho and Felix gave him a sympathetic glance, to which he shook his head before retrying the move.
After a few more run throughs of the dance, the choreographer finally called, "okay! 10 minute break."
The dancers sat down with their water bottles, out of breath and tired. Minho was the first to speak.
"Don't take what he's saying to heart, he doesn't seem to understand that people have different styles of dance, you're dancing just as well as usual."
Hyunjin let out a humourless laugh, "If that's how good I usually am then how am I still in the group?"
"You're a great dancer Jinnie, don't beat yourself up, we've only got a few more hours until we can go home." Felix said.
"Ugh, a shower and some sleep is sounding amazing right now." Hyunjin practically moaned, earning a few disgusted noises and laughs from the others.
"Alright, don't get too excited." Felix said in distaste, earning him a shove from the offended dancer.
Minho took this time to say to Hyunjin, "How are you and Innie?"
Hyunjin looked at him, confused. "We're fine, why?"
"I just didn't know if you'd actually spoken to him, that's all."
"Yeah well, we're all good now. Thanks."
"Okay good. Are you making time for him to be-" he looked over at the choreographer, who was on the other side on the room, distracted by something on his phone, "little?"
"We haven't made any plans or anything but, we had a talk and opened up about some stuff. Why's it any of your business anyway?"
Minho looked shocked, Hyunjin always loved gushing about how cute Jeongin was, recounting stories from when he had regressed. "I was just asking."
"Well this isn't the time, we've gotta get this dance finished or else we'll be here all night." After saying that, he stood up and took his place back in front of the mirrors, immediately going to work on the part of his dance that was "sloppy".
Felix and Minho looked at each other, "He's really not okay." Felix observed.
"Let's not push him, you know how he gets. He'll just isolate himself or snap if we keep trying to get answers."
Felix sighed in response, "Let's just hope Innie doesn't land on the receiving end of that."
"Uh huh." Minho agreed, silently praying that Hyunjin's mood wouldn't result in him saying something he'd regret to anyone, but specifically Innie. He was fragile in his littlespace, and the last thing he needed was Hyunjin saying the wrong thing and breaking the trust between them.
"Alright! Break's over! Let's get to it!"
The two dancers groaned, pulling themselves up and getting into position, they both saw the agitated look on Hyunjin's face and shared a single thought: this is gonna be a long dance practice.
~~~~~
It was nearly 10pm when the dancers arrived back at the dorm. The first thing Jeongin noticed was how uneasy Minho and Felix looked. The second was how Hyunjin didn't even spare anyone a glance before stalking to his room with a sour look on his face.
Chan was the first to speak, "Is he okay?"
Minho replied, "The new choreographer was really targeting him today. He's just pissed off. I'd say just leave him alone for a bit, don't want him snapping at anyone." He snuck a glance at Jeongin as he said this, but Chan seemed to get the message.
"Jeongin baby," Jeongin instantly looked towards him, "Why don't you go with Hannie and go get nice and comfy, ready for bed?"
Jeongin made a small noise of protest, pointing at the door in which Hyunjin just entered.
Chan sighed, "Jinnie's not feeling too well right now, why don't we do something else and let him rest?"
Jisung stood up from the sofa, "Come on Foxy, I'll read you a story, yeah?"
Jeongin giggled, nodding his head enthusiastically, "read to me!"
All the boys laughed, endeared with the littles actions. As Jisung led Jeongin out the room, Chan motioned for Minho and Felix to sit with the rest of them.
"What's up with him?" Seungmin was the first to enquire.
Felix shook his head, "He's just stressed."
Changbin scoffed, "We all are, you don't see any of us storming off to our rooms like a sulky teenager."
"Changbin." Chan scolded, "Instead of starting an argument, why don't we try and help him? We don't need to rush to conclusions."
"But he's not letting any of us help, he's barely even talking to Jeongin. The only times i've seen him talking to him lately are either right before bed or right before he leaves the house."
Felix nodded, "It's like he's trying to avoid-" his eyes widened.
"What is it?" Chan prompted.
"Do you think he's trying to avoid little innie?"
Minho frowned, "why would he do that?"
"Maybe he just feels like he can't be a good caregiver right now, he's got so much on his plate, maybe the idea of looking after Innie so just too much for him right now." Felix answered.
"It makes sense, I guess. But isn't there a better way to go about it than just avoiding him?" Seungmin piped in.
"Look," Chan straightened up, "let's just not intervene, I'm sure they'll talk to eachother properly, not just a quick five minute discussion before one of them leaves the house, and sort things out. It's not our place to intervene."
Everyone nodded in agreement. Not long after, Jisung exited Jeongin's room, requesting to be filled in with what they were saying. After getting the general story, he said, "I think Innie's taking it worse than he's letting on."
"How so?"
"When I asked him about Hyunjin, he said something along the lines of 'not wanting to bother him', he never usually cares about that."
Seungmin sighed, "Let's just give Hyunjin some space, and continue to look after a Jeongin in the meantime. Forcing them together isn't going to help anyone."
"Agreed."
And with that, the conversation moved on to a lighter topic, Jisung animatedly describing his day while the others goofed around, adding their own little anecdotes throughout. Everyone was having a good time, leaving Hyunjin and Jeongin to their own devices.
~~~~~
Hyunjin looked up from where his head from squished face first into the pillow. A timid knock at the door alerted him to the presence of someone else. He looked at the time on his phone, 12:34am, he must've fallen asleep.
"Who is it?" His voice slurred as he called out.
"Innie." The voice replied quietly.
"Come in."
The door opened slowly, revealing a shy Innie wearing an oversized t-shirt, with Jiniret securely in his arms. "You okay, Jinnie?" He asked, as he crawled onto the bed.
"I'm fine baby, just tired."
"Looked angry when you came home."
"I was just frustrated, Innie. Don't worry about it. Now, are you going to sleep?"
Jeongin shook his head, no.
"Then what are you doing in here? I'm tired baby, Jinnie wants to sleep."
"Haven't spent time with me in forever. Miss you." Jeongin pouted as he looked at Hyunjin, who had pulled himself into a sitting position.
"I've been busy Jeongin. I can't spend every minute with you, as much as I'd like to. Everything's very stressful right now."
"Thought you liked looking after me? Didn't mean to make you more stressed. Sorry." Jeongin's lip trembled as he apologised.
Hyunjin ran his hands through his hair, "Jeongin, look, I can't spend a lot of time with you right now, and I'm sorry, but there are six other people in the dorm, why can't you just go to one of them for once?"
Jeongin flinched at the harsh tone, eyes filling up further with tears.
"I'm taking a shower, I didn't have one earlier. Just go to someone else, okay?"
Hyunjin stood up and headed for the door, but Jeongin was quicker and blocked his path.
"Why would you agree to be my caregiver if you can't be bothered to spend time with me?"
Hyunjin could see the conflicting emotions behind Jeongin's eyes, he could tell that he was trying to force himself to be big, although his mind was slipping quickly.
"Just because you're my boyfriend doesn't mean that you have to be my caregiver, It's not like I forced you, so why do you make it seem like such a chore for you to do?"
Hyunjin moved past him, "I'm not arguing Jeongin, I'm tired and I want to shower."
"No! Every conversation we've had for the past week has been you apologising for something, and yet every day you still do the same thing! If i'm being a burden then at least have the decency to tell me so that I don't embarrass myself by trying to be vulnerable in front of you."
Hyunjin turned around to face him, gritting his teeth. "Oh my god, Innie, I'm trying to take a shower, can you just go to bed?"
Despite the fact that he could feel himself rapidly slipping from the nickname, Jeongin persisted, "I'm not going to bed until you talk to me like an adult instead of avoiding everything!"
"Oh 'cause you're one to talk about being an adult. Really Jeongin?"

Jeongin blinked, "What?" he whispered.

"You want to have an adult conversation? Maybe I wouldn't be so stressed out if you could just grow up and act your age for one minute!"
Jeongin stared at him. Eyes shining with unshed tears. Hyunjin immediately regretted what he just said, but he couldn't stand having to look at the face of the person he loved in so much despair and disbelief, so he just walked out of the room, leaving Jeongin standing there. Alone.
~~~~~
Jeongin felt himself rapidly slipping. Too many emotions hit him at once. Anger. Sadness. Betrayal. Embarrassment.
He left Hyunjin's room in what felt like slow motion. When he reached his own, he fell to the floor. All the unshed tears flooding out of his eyes as he sobbed on the ground. He cradled his head in his hands and his body shook.
Stupid stupid stupid stupid!
Grow up!
The words kept repeating themselves in his head. They repeated as he stumbled to the closet.
Stupid
They repeated as he grabbed the shoebox from under his blanket.
Stupid
They repeated as he stepped out of his room, hearing the shower running from down the hall.
Stupid
They repeated as he emptied the contents into the bin.
Grow up.
He sobbed as he looked at the pacifiers, drawings, toys and jewellery that were now nothing more than trash.
He remembered Hyunjin buying him his first pacifier, it was awkward, he didn't know much about littlespace at that point, and yet it was perfect.
He remembered proudly showing his drawings to the members, the stick figures all resembling one of them.
He remembered making bracelets with Seungmin and Felix, how happy he had been when they praised his work.
But Hyunjin was right.
All of this, regressing, acting like a child, it was pathetic. He needed to grow up eventually.
He walked back to his room, throwing the blankets off of his bed, and laid down, exhaustion weighing down on him. He fell asleep instantly, and Jiniret laid atop the discarded blankets.